korean phonology in the late twentieth century*s-space.snu.ac.kr/bitstream/10371/86091/1/8....

Korean Phonology in the Late Twentieth Century*

Young-mee Yu Cho and Gregory K. Iverson

Research in Korean phonology has been unusually productive, both within the structuralist tradition and in the generative framework. On the structural side, Martin's phonemics and morphophonemics laid structural groundwork for later generative studies while instrumental works provided a valuable phonetic grounding for phonological analyses to come. Earlier generative studies were mainly concerned with such issues as features, segments and rules, following the program developed in the Sound Pattern of English. The late 1970's saw the emergence of Autosegmental Theory. Many traditional analyses were revisited and given new interpretations. Recent works on consonantal phonology also attempt to move beyond description and toward explanation by maXlITllzmg representational apparatus and minimizing language-specific rules. The development of Lexical Phonology and Prosodic Hierarchy Theory in the 1980's was triggered by an interest in rule domains and in the interface between phonology and morphology/syntax. Many studies contributed to the prosodic characterization of morphological categories and the formal representation of domains. Most recently, Optimality Theory promises to solve some of the thorny issues of Korean phonology such as the n- tP alternation, Consonant Cluster Simplification and Glide Formation, Palatalization, Umlaut, Tensification and Korean phrasing.

Thanks to a few pioneers, research in Korean phonology has been

unusually productive, both within the structuralist tradition and in the

generative framework. On the structural side, Martin's phonemics (1951) and

morphophonemics (1954) laid structural groundwork for generative studies .

• This paper was presented at the Tenth International Circle of Korean Linguistics meeting at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia in July 1996. We would like to thank the audience at the conference for many valuable comments. We also extend our thanks to the anonymous reviewer for helpful suggestions.

Language Research, Volume 33, Number 4, December 1997. 0254-4474/687-735 687

688 Young-mee Yu Cho and Gregory K. Iverson

Similarly, instrumental works (M. Han 1966, Han and Weitzman 1970, C-W.

Kim 1965, 1970a) provided a valuable phonetic grounding for phonological

analyses to come. There is a long tradition of phonological research in

Korea which dates back perhaps as early as the 15th century and had been

particularly active in the first half of this century during the Japanese

occupation. The scope of our paper, however, is limited to the research in

the latter half of the 20th century, and the focus will be on the role Korean

phonology has played in deVeloping and evaluating various phonological

theories l .

1. The Vowel System

Earlier studies were mainly concerned with such issues as features,

segments and rules, following the program developed in The Sound Pattern of English (Chomsky & Halle 1968). For instance, C-W. Kim's (968) paper

on Korean vowels suggests a systematic (albeit too abstract) analysis of

underlying vowels and diphthongs. The paper sparked an abstractness debate

(B-G. Lee 1976), and was also seminal in the development of underspecified

analyses of vowels some twenty years later (Sohn 1987). On the abstract

extreme is a theory that posits the four vowels shown in (la), and derives

all the other vowels and diphthongs by various rules of fronting and rounding.

(1) The Korean Vowel System

a. C-W. Kim's four vowel system (968)

Underlying vowels : / i, a, 0, e /

onglides : / w /, / y /

offglide : / y /

Surface vowels : / i, e, re, i, e, a, u, 0, r/J /

b. Ten vowel system (B-G. Lee 1976, Y -So Kim 1984, Ahn 1985)

front back

rd rd

high i.i i u

e 0 e 0

low re a

I We were not able to do justice to research done in Korea mainly due to lack to access, but the reader is referred to S-O. Lee (1988) which reviews work on Korean phonology published between 1977 and 1987.

Korean Phonology in the Late Twentieth Century 689

c. Eight vowel system (H. Sohn 1987, Y-S. Lee 1993)

front back

rd

high i u

e a 0

low a

The eight or nine vowel systems differ from the ten vowel system in that

one or both of the front rounded vowels are not assumed to occur

underlyingly. Often these vowels are derived postlexically from /wi/ and

/we/. While these two vowels were pure monophthongs in the earlier stages

of Korean, the diphthongization has been well underway and as a result, [il]

and [a] are in most environments in free variation with [wi] and [we]. The

monophthongal quality of these two vowels is preserved only after a coronal

continuant (/s/ and /c/). The fact that they enjoy such a restricted existence

and that they are in free variation with a glide and a vowel sequence while

no other vowel exhibits such a behavior strongly suggests that these vowels

are not distinctive.

However, as pointed out by Cho & Inkelas (1993) and M-H. Cho (1994), it

seems to make more sense to assume /i.i/ and /0/ to be underlying when one

considers such facts as the alternation between these vowels in mimetics.

Likewise, the Umlaut process (a lexical phenomenon) creates /i.i/ and /0/ out

of back vowels when followed by [i], thus arguing as well for the underlying

status of these vowels.

Also frequently discussed is the ongoing merger of the two nonhigh front

vowels, /e/ and /a!/ (H-B. Lee 1971, Y -So Hong 1987), which could further

reduce the number of vowels in the inventory. j-H. Lee (1995), for instance,

demonstrates that the reported merger is not a complete merger but a case

of a 'near-merger' in the sense of Labov, Karan & Miller (1991), i.e., these

phonemes have a smaller phonetic distance than the normal phonemic

difference, but they are not completely identical yet. Many speakers do not

perceive the difference, while they consistently differentiate them in

production.

Related to Korean syllable structure and vowel inventory, the distributional

restrictions on the cooccurrence of a glide and a vowel have attracted

considerable interest in the literature (B-G. Lee 1976, Levin 1987, H. Sohn

1987, Y-S. Lee 1993). The pattern in (2) identifies the distributional gaps.


(2) Cooccurrences Between Glide and Vowel

ii wi *yi li *w li *y li * . * . WI YI u *wu

yu

e we ye o *wo *yo e we ye o *wo yo

re wre yre a wa ya

These restrictions have been used for diverse purposes, including to argue

for the position that the glide in Korean constitutes the nucleus, rather than

the onset, of the syllable. The noncooccurrence of the rounded glide /w/ and any of the rounded vowels has been dealt with in terms of the Obligatory

Contour Principle, barring two occurrences of the same feature [+round).

And the fact that the front rounded vowels never form a diphthong has

been used to argue that they should not be posited as underlying. For some

phonologists, the behavior of /iI with regard to the glides is taken to mean

that /iI is the least marked vowel in Korean. The issues are far from being satisfactorily resolved, and we can expect to see many more papers on this

topic in the future. (See Y. Cho (forthcoming) for further discussion).

Korean is traditionally described as having phonemic vowel length in all

its inventory (Han 1964, Maddieson 1984, Lee & Zhi 1987, Magen & Blumstein

1993). However, researchers have disagreed on the inclusion of the length contrast. Although the vowel length distinction may be still phonemic for

some speakers, its functional load is extremely low, and perception of the

contrast does not always match the results of production (H-B. Lee 1971,

J-w. Park 1993). In short, the vowel length distinction is being lost in

Korean, and the contrast seems to be maintained mainly only by a 'learned vocabulary' strategy.

2. Korean Consonants

As for the consonantal processes, Kim-Renaud (1974) provided the first

complete analysis of consonantal alternations involving intervocalic weakening,

obstruent-neutralization, and assimilation. Her generalization that a coronal

consonant is the most susceptible to assimilation was extensively utilized

within the theory of Underspecification as it developed in the 1980's. She

derives many processes from the phonetic fact that a Korean coda consonant

is never released, which provides one of the empirical bases for Steriade's (1993) theory of aperture.

Korean Phonology in the Late Twentieth CenturY 691

2.1. The Representation of Korean Tense Consonants

The last forty years have seen an ongoing debate on the proper

representation of the underlying phonation contrasts in Korean. While most

works assume that Korean has a three-way underlying phonation contrast

voiceless plain, aspirated, and tense (C-W. Kim 1965, Kim-Renaud 1974, ete.),

there have been numerous attempts to reduce the contrast to a binary one.

In particular, Martin (1954, 1982) and J Han (1992, 1996) have claimed that

the so-called 'tense' consonants are underlyingly geminate plain consonants.

There are problems associated with the geminate-account of tense consonants, many of which have been addressed in the account of Tak & Davis (1994),

who argue that intermorphemic or derived tense consonants indeed are

geminates, but morpheme-internal, underived ones are simplex. Others have

maintained that even aspirated consonants are also geminate (S-H. Kim 1989,

J. lun 1994). If tense consonants are underlyingly geminate, then tenseness (as interpreted by such features as [+ tense] , or [+constlicted glottis]) can be

dispensed with in the phonology and treated as the phonetic interpretation of the phonological representation of gemination. Though there are problems

associated with this general approach, we will look at the specific proposal

of J. Han (992), one of the most concrete of the several claims along these

lines.

Han observes in support of a geminate account of tenseness that there is a significant difference in length between intervocalic tense consonants, on

the one hand, and word-initial tense and intervocalic plain consonants, on

the other. However, we note that not only tense consonants but also aspirated

consonants have been observed as considerably longer than plain consonants. Still, Han (1996) addresses many of the problems posed in Cho and Inkelas

(1994), but not all. One of these is a Question as to what kind of speech

was used in measuring the duration of intervocalic tense consonants. In particular, it has often been observed that certain intervocalic tense and

aspirated consonants are phonologically geminated in emphatic speech, as

illustrated in (3).

(3) a. Emphatic Speech Gemination 'Dad'

'be sick'

b. Emphatic Speech Gemination is not allowed in non-initial syllables aces'j

celkuthong

*acess'j

*celkutthong

'uncle'

'pestle'

692 Young-mee Yu eho and Gregory K. Iverson

It so happens that all the examples used by Han of intervocalic tense

consonants belong to the first class, and can be readily geminated in slow

emphatic speech. Thus it is not clear that the extra duration must be

attributed to the putative underlying geminate status of tense consonants, or

whether it might not in fact be due to emphatic rendering of these forms by

the subjects in the experiment.

Han's other argument comes from the phenomenon of Degemination, in

which, as shown in (4), a sequence of homorganic plain obstruents is often

simplified in allegro speech (Kim-Renaud 1987).

(4) Allegro Speech Degemination ak + ki akk'i ak'i

tat + ta tatt'a tat'a

'musical instrument' 'to close'

Both Emphatic Speech Gemination and Allegro Speech Degemination are

optional and produce a clear, recognizable distinction between geminated and degeminated forms, thus indicating that tense consonants cannot be

considered geminates across-the-board, although the two-way neutralization

in which tense consonants are geminated and geminated consonants are

realized as tense does seem to imply a close relationship between tenseness and gemination.

In sum, none of the arguments for the geminate account of tense consonants

are compelling enough to reject the view of tense consonants as single

phonemes, at least morpheme-internally. It has been claimed, however, that

a certain explanatory economy is gained by the geminate account. In particular, for Korean partial reduplication, lun (1994) proposes a principle of

Metrical Weight Consistency which requires that the number of metrical feet

in the input be conserved in the output. This principle is based on the

following two assumptions: 1) Tense and aspirated consonants are geminates

(i.e., moraic), 2) the Korean foot is quantity-sensitive, unbounded and right

headed.

What is relevant for our purposes is the fact that partial reduplication of

bases with tense and aspirated onsets results in the loss of tenseness and

aspiration on the second syllable, as illustrated in (5). Laryngeal feature loss

in the reduplicant is presumably accounted for by Metrical Weight

Consistency. All the inputs to partial reduplication contain a single foot (a

single heavy syllable, or a disyllabic stem consisting of a light syllable and

a heavy syllable). As a consequence, the output words should contain only


one foot. If the output were to preserve the laryngeal features on the second

syllable, as in *[p'a-p'aoJ. then the tense consonant would be moraic, making

the output consist, incorrectly, of two feet.

(5) Partial Reduplication (jun 1994)

sak sa-sak , crisp

,

tung tu-tung 'booming drum

culuk cu-\u-luk , rain dropping

,

p'ao p'a-pao p'a-pa-pao ('p'a-p'ao) 'bang ,

thak tha-tak, tha-ta-tak (*tha-thak) 'with a slap ,

It is, however, extremely plausible to have an optimality account of partial

reduplication whereby the loss of laryngeal features is a case of emerging

unmarked constraints by relevant constraint ranking; there is consequeritly

no need to represent tense and aspirated consonants as geminates, nor any

need to invoke Jun's foot-type (quantity-sensitive, unbounded and right

headed), which seems to play no role in other parts of Korean phonology (S.

Kim 1996).

2.2. The Liquid

There are several changes involving the lateral and the nasals in Korean.

One recent account is that of McDonough (1994), who argues that these

changes occur to repair instances of violation of the Lateral Onset Constraint,

according to which the feature [lateral) is not licensed in the onset except in

geminates. As illustrated by the data in (6), it is true that Korean does not

allow the underlying nonnasal sonorant to be realized as a lateral in the

syllable onset position if it does not simultaneously constitute the latter half

of a geminate.

(6) Singleton Codas

talkyal 'egg' Onsets raion 'lion'

Geminates molla 'don't know'

The distributional pattern appears to be an obvious example of geminate

inalterability with regard to an onset constraint, arguing against the position

advocated by Inkelas & Cho (993). It is specifically maintained that the

syllable initial III occurs only when it is (indirectly) licensed by a coda;

licensing of the first part of a geminate III enables the onset III to be well

formed.


However, there is only one liquid in Korean and there is no evidence

whatsoever that it is specified for laterality at the relevant point in

derivation (Y. Cho 1997). In fact, there is a clear indication that the liquid

is unmarked for this property in onset positions not only underlyingly but

also at least until the phrasal level. One way of understanding the phonetic

realization of liquids has been to assign the feature [+lateral] to the coda

and the feature [-lateral] to the onset. According to this conception, singleton

codas and geminates surface as [I], while singleton onsets surface as er].

But the data involving lateralization of It! in (7b) strongly suggest that

implementation of laterality in the onset position is not warranted. In loan phonology, all liquids (whether they came from IV or Irl in the source

languages) exhibit uniform realization for some processes. In (7b),

word-initial er] triggers lateralization even though it surfaces as nonlateral in

the nonassimilatory environment. In (7c), both IV and Id undergo nasalization

postconsonantally, while in (7d) both of them trigger lateralization of In!.

(7) a. 'Los Angeles' [rosi enjeles]

b. Lateralization of It I

'Reno' [rino]

kot rosi enjeles -> kollosi enjeles 'soon Los Angeles .. .'

kot rino --> kollino 'soon Reno .. .'

c. Nasalization of liquid 'Hamlet' [ham nit]

'Camry' [camni]

d. Lateralization of In! 'Henry' [helli]

'only' [olli]

The uniform behavior of IV and Irl in loans makes it natural to assume

that the feature [lateral] is privative in Korean. In other words, a syIlable

initial [r] does not acquire any value for laterality in the phonology per se.

In both 'Los Angeles' and 'Reno', the initial liquid should be represented as a

sonorant approximant which is not marked one way or the other for the

feature [lateral], as per the model introduced by Iverson & H. Sohn (994).

Laterality comes into play only when the default rule assigns [+lateral] to

the coda position. As syllable-initial liquids are then not marked [-lateral],

they will trigger lateralization as in (7b), which is in fact merely assimilation,


or spreading, of the feature [+sonorant] (along with its [+approximant]

dependent). The lateralization of the assimilated cluster (It + r/ ~ DJ]) is

therefore due to the independently needed rule assigning laterality to the

coda consonant; and since onset [r] is not specified for laterality, the

resulting lateraIization in geminate clusters is also due to coda lateralization,

not assimilation.

Contrary to the analysis couched in terms of geminate inalterability, the

above data actually illustrate a case of geminate 'alterability': Both singleton

and geminate codas undergo lateralization even though the second half of a

geminate does not satisfy the structural description of coda lateralization.

The phonetic interpretation of the onset liquid as a flap then follows from a

phonetic implementation rule to that effect, but Iverson & H. Sohn (994), in

fact, go a step farther by relating the m/[r] distribution to the general

requirement of coda non-release in Korean rather than to a phonological rule

assigning laterality to coda liquids. Specifically, they observe that coda

sonorant consonants in Korean, like the obstruents, maintain their central

oral contact phase throughout their articulation, i.e., are 'unreleased'; for the

liquid in coda position, the continued tongue-contact requirement results

automatically in lateral articulation, whereas in onset position the liquid is

centrally released, resulting in a tap.

3. Autosegrnental Phonology

The late 1970's saw the emergence of Autosegmental (non-linear) Theory

(Goldsmith 1976). Many traditional analyses were revisited and given new

interpretations. Suprasegmental aspects such as harmony and tonology are

two areas which naturally lend themselves to autosegmental analyses.

Diachronic and synchronic accounts of Korean vowels were explored to a

great extent, based on earlier studies by S-N. Lee (1947), W-J. Kim (1963),

K-M. Lee (1972). Of particular theoretical interest is the mimetic system

which involves typologically unusual height harmony (McCarthy 1984, Y -So Kim 1988, Y-S. Lee 1993).

3.1. Vowel Harmony

The diachronic and synchronic aspects of vowel harmony in Korean have

been a topic of much controversy in the literature. Much of the evidence for

the organization of the Middle Korean vowel inventory comes from a


productive rule of vowel hannony, which has synchronic reflexes in the

mimetic system of Modem Korean. The mimetic system involving height

hannony is also interesting in its own right for puzzles which it raises about the representation of transparent vowels and distributional asymmetries in the vowel inventory.

The mimetic vocabulary of Korean consists of several thousands of soundimitating and manner-symbolic words which manifest consonantal and vocalic alternations. The consonantal and vocalic qualities of the morphemes

correlate with systematic semantic distinctions of light and dark, which roughly corresponds to diminutive and augmentative. This distinction is made along the height dimension of vowels; dark vowels are high or mid

unrounded, and bright vowels are low or mid rounded.

(8) Vocalic Alternations

i ii i u Dark ~r-o-----B-n-'g-h-t--------------------

a:! a

There are six 'non-low' vowels in the inventory, each of which has a low mimetic counterpart. This results in six possible mimetic alternation types; all are attested, and examples are given in (9).

(9) a. I jf-I re I kilc'uk krec'uk 'slim

,

pisil presil 'weak' pithil pa:!til 'twisted'

piuiu preupreu , rotating

,

b./e/-/rel kelkel krelkrel 'exhausting' k'ecilak k'a:!cilak 'halfheartedly'

t'ekul t'rekul , rolling down

,

c./ii/-/51 k'iiciicii k'oc5c5 'dingy . hiihii hOh5

, round about'

nulah-ta n5lah-ta 'sickly yellow ,

Korean Phonology in the Late Twentieth Century

d./i/-/a/

k'it'ak

silc'ak

hintil

k'ink'in

e. /a/-/a/

alluk

papak

k'auchuu

f. /u/-Iol culcul

pusil k'umthil

k'ultak

k'at'ak

salc'ak

hantil

k'ank'an

allok

papak

k'auchou

colcol

posil k'omthil

k'olt'ak

'nodding'

'secretly'

'breezy'

'sticky'

'motley'

'scratching'

'jumping

'running'

'drizzling'

'wriggling'

gulping'

697

For vowels in columns with more than one dark, or nonlow, vowel, i.e.,

the unrounded vowels (/i/ and lel, and Ii/ and la/) , the relationship between

the two dark vowels is not predictable.

All previous attempts to analyze the mimetic system have confronted two

basic problems. The first is that the two harmonic sets of vowels do not

constitute natural classes in any standard feature system. The second is that

the class of transparent vowels is defined in terms of the harmonizing

feature-and as a further challenge for most existing theories of vowel

harmony, the high vowels are transparent to height harmony (noninitially).

Kim-Renaud (1974) adopts a diacritic solution to the first problem, proposing

the features [dark] and [light]; though semantically motivated, these are

phonetically opaque. McCarthy (1983), on the other hand, tackles the first

problem with an abstract solution. Assuming that mimetic harmony involves

the feature [Iow], McCarthy proposes that the nonhigh round vowels are

phonologically [+ low]. Their phonetic mid values are generated by a late

absolute neutralization rule ordered after mimetic harmony has taken place.

To handle the transparency problem, he proposes that high vowels are

underlyingly specified as [ +high, -low]. Their inherent How] value blocks

the assignment of [+low] in the 'bright' harmony environment. Initial high

vowels lack inherent specification for [Iow], and therefore receive whatever

value is assigned by the mimetic harmony. Though descriptively adequate,

this analysis does not explain why transparency should be limited to


noninitial posItIOn, nor does it explain why specifically high vowels, rather

than, say, mid vowels, are transparent.

Cho & Inkelas (1993) offer an alternative account which relies on the following assumptions. First, high vowels are underspecified for tongue height features, which accounts for their transparent behavior. Tongue Height

hannony takes place below the level of the Tongue Height (or Aperture) node, from which both [high] and [Iow] are dependent. Finally, the mimetic process is decomposed into two parts, initial Linking and Spreading, which

accounts for the different behavior of initial and noninitial high vowels. Other attempts to rationalize this system rely on different features (cf. Y -So Kim 1988 for ATR [advanced tongue root] and Y. Lee 1993 for DVR [deep voice resonance]). There are several reasons to reject these proposals, however: 1) No phonetic motivation exists for Korean speakers to analyze the mimetic alternations in terms of A TR, since the height distinctions are articulatorily and acoustically salient, and A TR is usually defined as a distinction in vowels whose height is constant; 2) The transparency of high vowels is arbitrary and must stipulate * [+high, ATRl

3.2. Vowel Harmony in Verbal Morphology: Diagonal Harmony

Aside from the mimetic vocabulary, the only area in which the once productive vowel hannony of Middle Korean has survived is the le-a! alternation in verbal suffixes stated in (10).

(10) In careful speech, suffix-initial lel becomes la! after a verb stem whose last vowel is either 101 or la!.

(11) "Diagonal Hannony" (Ahn & Kim 1985)

a. coh-a tolpo-asa cap-ass-ta

b. cip-ala pe-asa m:e-ass-ko

cil-ato k'o-ala khi-a > kha

mul-ass-ta

sa-ato > sato

'be good-Continuative'

'look after-Causal' 'catch-Past-Declarative'

'pick-Imperative'

'cut-Causal' 'tie-Past-Conjunction' 'grab-Concessive'

'tempt-Imperative' 'be big-Continuative'

'bite-Past-Declarative'

'stand-Concessive'


(12) Bright Vowels vs. Dark Vowels in verbal morphology

li u

e /to a

Is "Diagonal Harmony" a spreading {assimilation} process? The answer is

no. First, in colloquial speech, initial 101 obligatorily triggers the alternation

while noninitial 101 does not, as exemplified in (\3).

(13) a. coh-a *coh-a 'be good'

kow-a *kow-a 'pretty'

nok-a *nok-a 'melt'

b. k5low-a k6low-a , agonize

alimtaw-a - alimtaw-a 'be beautiful'

Second, an assimilation account cannot explain why the alternation is

restricted to the first suffix even though the same suffix is involved, as in

the case illustrated in (14).

(14) coh-ass-ass-ta 'be good-Past-Past-Declarative'

Third, in colloquial speech, la! does not obligatorily trigger the alternation at

all, as the doublets in (15) attest.

(15) cap-a

yatat-a

cap-a

yatat-a

'grab'

'open and close'

The la-a! alternation, then, is basically morphological. The relevant suffixes

are characterized by two allomorphs, with la! selected when the stem contains

101 in its first syllable, the lal allomorph elsewhere. This analysis also helps

to explain an otherwise puzzling fact about the diagonal harmony, namely,

its restriction to back vowels. In mimetics, both front and back vowels

undergo height harmony. The explanation for the restriction on the diagonal

process lies in the fact that historically, when the so-called Diagonal Harmony

was productive, Korean only had a back vowel series (K-M. Lee 1972).


4. Lexical Phonology

The development of Lexical Phonology (Kiparsky 1982) and Prosodic

Hierarchy Theory (Selkirk 1984, Nespor and Vogel 1986) in the 1980's was

triggered by an interest in rule domains and in the interface between

phonology and morphology/syntax. Several dissertations contributed to the

prosodic characterization of morphological categories and the formal

representation of domains, but it has often been noted that morphosyntactic

structures do not always match up with prosodic structures (Selkirk 1984,

Nespor and Vogel 1986, InkeIas 1989). One of the most well-known

observations regarding this non-isomorphism is that there is an internal

word boundary (often called a compound boundary), where each member of

a compound forms a separate phonological domain, or 'prosodic word', while suffixes often cohere to the second member of a compound. Although

mismatches between morphological and prosodic structures have been well

documented, recently efforts have been made to clarify the nature of the

prosodic constituents in question. In Korean, prefixes and each member of a

compound (but not suffixes) form an independent domain for such processes as

Syllabification (as evidenced by Coda-Neutralization and Cluster Simplification), Palatalization and In/-insertion, some familiar examples of which are listed in (16).

(6) Sublexical Prosodic Domain in Korean (S. Ahn 1985, Y-S. Kim 1985,

J-M. Kim 1986, D. Park 1990, O. Kang 1993, E. Han 1994).

a. Coda-Neutralization aph

pich

cas pak'-e k'och-i

mos+an path+ilao

ap

pit

cat pak'e k'ochj

motan

patirao

b. Cluster Simplification

anc-a

kaps-i anca kapsj

naks+apsi nakapsi kaps+achj kapachi

'front' 'light'

'pine nut'

'outside-Locative'

'f!ower-Nominative'

'inside the pond'

'field ridge'

'sit+ suffix'

'price- Nominative'

'absent-mindedly'

'value'


c. Palatalization

canti kath-i

path-i

path+ilalJ

canti (* canji) kachi

'grass'

'together+ Adv'

'field - Nominative'

'field ridge'

h· pac I

patiralJ

d. InI- ~ alternation kholJ+yas

pom+yalim

cit-iki

chrek-ilk-ko

5. Optimality Theory

'bean taffy'

pomnyarim 'spring and summer'

cinniki- 'to mash'

chrekilk'o (*c\funilk'o)'read a book and'

70]

Most recently, Optimality Theory (Prince and Smolensky 1993, McCarthy

and Prince 1993) promises to solve some of the thorny issues of Korean

phonology. For instance, the n- r/i alternation clearly demonstrates that

neither the historically true deletion account nor the diachronically inverted

insertion account is adequate. It is a well-known fact of Korean historical

phonology that in the late 18th century the coronal nasal n started to delete

in word- initial position before the high front vowel IV and the glide Iy/. As

a result, IniI has been completely neutralized in initial position in Modern

Standard Korean, except in recent loan words.

However, the synchronic n- ~ alternation is much more complex in medial

position. As exemplified in (17), not only the etymologic (i.e., historically

true) 1nl but also nonetymologic (historically unattested) 1nl surfaces in

non-initial positions.

(7) a. Etymologic 1nl akum+ni

nuc+nyalim -- nunnyarim

b. Nonetymologic 1nl pam+il

srek+yuli -- pamnil -- sreunyuri, srekyuri

'molar'

'late summer'

'night work'

'colored glass'

Whereas the historical change of 1nl-deletion neutralized only the initial

distinction between IniI and lil, the synchronic rule seems to work in two

ways: First delete the initial 1nl, second, insert 1nl (optionally) in the

702 YOllng-mee YlI Cho and Gregory K. Iverson

relevant medial position. Descriptively speaking, the relevant boundary here

involves the position after a prefix or a stem in a compound, when the

preceding element ends in a consonant (obligatorily after a sonorant and

optionally after an obstruent), as illustrated by the pair Ipam+iV [pamni!]

'night work' and InolJ sa+iV [nolJ sail] 'farm work'.

One can immediately rule out the possibility of diachronic rule inversion (Vennemann 1972), i.e., it is not possible to assume that In/-deletion in

initial position has been completely reanalyzed as In/-insertion in a

complementary environment, because etymologic In/ behaves differently in

compounding from nonetymologic In/ when the preceding morpheme ends in

a vowel. Thus, initial etymologic In/ in the second element of a sub

compound undergoes gemination, but nonetymologic In/ is not even introduced if the first word in the compound ends in a vowel, as shown in (18) (Cook 1987).

(18) a. Etymologic In/ undergoes gemination: al::e+ni ....... k'::e+niph .......

ar::enni k'::ennip

'lower teeth'

'sesame leaf'

b. Nonetymologic In/ is not introduced: nOlJsa+il .......

k'::e+Y9S ....... nOlJsail k'::eyat

'farm work'

'sesame toffee'

Under the traditional rule-based approach, there are no reasons to prefer

an insertion account over a deletion account. The deletion analysis alone (W. Huh 1965, C-W. Kim 1970b) is not descriptively adequate, since it cannot

account for the reason why all words invariably acquire In/ before a high

front vowel unless preceded by a vowel-final word in a sub-compound.

Since all underlying representations would begin with In/, there is no way

to account for the observed difference of gemination versus absence of In/ in compounds, short of arbitrarily deleting just certain intervocalic In/s. The

insertion account, on the other hand, cannot explain why all words beginning

with lni/ must lose In/ in initial position.

As demonstrated in Y. Cho 0994, 1997), these data call for a nondirectional

account in which the nasal segment alternates with zero, where the outcome

depends on the interaction between several independent constraints. An

optimality-theoretic account of Consonant Cluster Simplification (Iverson &

S. Lee 1995, described below) and Glide Formation (Y-S. Lee 1995) are other

good examples of the way Optimality Theory sheds light on hitherto


intractable problems.

6. Korean Intonation and Phrasal Phonology

There have also been several insightful instrumental studies of Korean

intonation (H. Koo 1986, Silva 1992, S. jun 1993). Recent interpretation of

the data seems to suggest that Standard Korean is a deprived pitch-accent

system where an underlying tonal melody is not associated with a lexical

item (except for the set of interrogative pronouns), but is mapped onto the

phonological phrase as defined by the theory of Prosodic Hierarchy. The

major difference between the standard dialect on the one hand, and the

Kyengsang dialect, other Modem Korean dialects (Ramsey 1978), and Midclle

Korean (S-O. Lee 1978)-of which the standard dialect is a direct descendant

on the other hand, lies in the fact that the latter have lexically contrastive

tones. There are scattered studies on the Kyengsang (Y. Chung 1991,

Kenstowicz & Solm 1996) and Cholla dialects (S. Jun 1993), but it is time to

aim for a complete tonological picture of all Korean dialects.

In addition, it has been demonstrated that Focus has a top-down effect in

restructuring phonological phrases in Korean by obligatorily imposing a new

phrase boundary (Y. Cho 1990). In particular, the role Focus plays in

accentuation and phrasing has only recently begun to be explored. An

Optimality-Theoretic investigation of Korean phrasing promises to be

especially fruitful since diverse constraints reflecting syntactic constituency,

weight, speech rate, and focus interact intricately to produce the surface

patterns of intonation and rhythm.

7. Place Geometry

Turning now to new developments in feature geometry, we note that, in

parallel to Y. Cho's (1990) parametric approach to the characterization of

assimilation phenomena, a proposal has emerged in recent years which calls

for a specific structural asymmetry in the representation of place features.

The idea is founded primarily on a now familiar bias first noted in the

phonology of Korean, where, under conditions of regressive place

assimilation, coronals assimilate to labials and velars, and labials assimilate

to velars; but velars do not assimilate to labials, and neither labials nor

velars assimilate to coronals. Iverson & K-H. Kim (1987) layout the

relevant data, recently recapitulated as in (19) by Iverson & S. Lee (995):


(19) Place of Articulation Assimilation

/pan+myen/ -+ [pammyen] , on the other hand'

/sin+pal! -+ [simbalJ 'shoes ,

/han+kau/ -+ [haugau] 'Han River

/pat+ko/ -+ [pakk'o] 'receive-and'

/os+pota/ -+ [opp'oda] 'clothes-than ,

/ep+ko/ -+ [ekk'o] 'carry-and'

/kam+ki/ -+ [kaugi] 'cold'

But :/nop+ta/ -+ [nopt'a] 'high - Declarative ,

/nok+ta/ -+ [nokt'a] , melt-Declarative

,

/kuk+mull -+ [kuumuJ] 'soup-broth'

This asymmetry derives conventionally from the spreacling of marked into unmarked structure if, following Avery & Rice (1989) and Rice (1994), a

node 'Peripheral' is posited in the feature geometry subordinate to Place;

coronals are then unspecified for all Place nodes, labials are marked just for

Peripheral, and velars contain Peripheral along with the subordinate articulator Dorsal, as shown in (20).

(20) velars labials coronals

Place Place Place I I

Peripheral Peripheral I

Dorsal

Thus, coronals take on the qualities of both labials and velars because

coronals are less fully represented than either labials or velars. By the same

consideration, labials take on the qualities of velars but not coronals, while

velars resist assimilation to either of the other two place of articulation categories. This pattern is found also in English casual speech U[lJ] Kingston,

i[m] Plymouth, !ro[lJ] Kingston, but fro[m] Toronto, etc.), and Rice (1994)

adduces other support for the Peripherality idea from historical developments

in Romanian and a number of Algonquian (Arapaho, Atsina, Y urok) and

Athabaskan languages (Ingalik).

More recently still, Davis, Iverson & Salmons (1996) show how the

markedness relations emerging from this orIginally Korean-based place of

articulation hierarchy also bear, rather surprisingly, on the strictly manner of

articulation adjustments in the history of German known collectively as the


High Gem1an Consonant Shift. According to this well-known sound change

(cf., e.g., Davis & Iverson 1995), Proto-West Gern1anic Ip t kI became the

voiceless affricates Ipf ts kx/ in early Old High Gem1an, as in *plegan,

*tiohan, *kom > OHG pflegan 'to tend', ziohan 'to pul\', chorn 'grain' (z

presumably stood for Itsl, ch for /kx/). Only the extreme southern dialects

of Old High German were affected by the shift of k > h, however, and the

more northerly dialects also were generally exempt from the shift of p > PI. particularly in word-initial position. After vowels, the shift ultimately resulted

in geminate fricatives rather than affricates, e.g., *opan > OHG offan 'open',

* etan > e3.PJ1 'to eat', * makon > rnahhon 'to make' (-.33- apparently indicated

a retracted variant of geminate Issl, -hh- stood for IxxI). But as the

summary in (21) indicates, the shift affected It! over the widest range and

to the greatest extent, Ipl somewhat less, and /k/ least of all. This follows

precisely the Peripherality model laid out in (20), because the greatest

resistance to participation in the shift is exhibited by the representationally

most complex stop (the velar), and least resistance by the least complex

stop (the coronal). Quite apart from its role in detern1ining susceptiblity to

place of articulation assimilation, therefore, Peripherality offers the empirically

correct distinction in place markedness not only of underspecified coronals

vis-a.-vis the other places of articulation, but also of labials in comparison

to velars, which otherwise would not be differentiated along the markedness

dimension.

(21) Overview of the High German Shift of Ip t kI, from North to South

coronals labials velars

Old Saxon (unshifted) p k

Middle z- -33- p- -ff- k-

Franconian -hh-

IThenish z- -33- p/pf- k-

Franconian -ff- -hh-

East Franconian z- -33- pf- -ff- k- -hh-

Upper German z- -33- pf- -ff- ch- -hh-

8. Peripherality and Optimality in Korean Nonassimilatory Phonology

The Peripherality idea also figures prominently in nonassimilatory aspects


of Korean phonology, as pointed out early on by C-W. Kim (988). One of

these concerns the much discussed treatment of consonant clusters, which

the language does not permit within syllables, i.e., only singletons are allowed

syllable-internally, hence surface consonantal sequences are necessarily

composed of at most two members, always heterosyllabic. Underlying

clusters which cannot be parsed as split prosodically between two syllables

because of their positioning in the word are then subject to simplification,

resulting in removal of either the first or the second member. Following the

discussion in Iverson & S. Lee (995), the forms in (22) illustrate that only

the first consonant in a stem-final cluster of obstruents or coronaIs surfaces

when the morpheme is word-final or followed by another consonant.

(22) Standard (Seoul) and Southeastern (Kyengsang) p(s) kaps --7 [kap] 'price

, (citation)

kaps+to --7 [kapt'o] , price-also

,

Ct. kaps+i --7 [kapsi] , price-Nominative

,

k(s) naks --+ [nak] 'soul'

moks --+ [mok] 'share ,

n(c) anc+ta --> [ant'a] 'to sit down 1(s) tols --7 [to!] '1st anniversary

,

J(th) halth+ta --7 [halt'a] 'to lick'

While the cluster reduction exemplified in (22) is regularly achieved at the

expense of the right member of the cluster, clusters of heterorganic liquid

plus stop exhibit dialect variation as shown in (23): The second (obstruent)

member survives in Standard Korean as spoken in Seoul (a), but the first

(sonorant) member surfaces in the Southeastern dialects of Kyengsang (b).

Sonorant-only clusters (flrn/), however, are affected the same way throughout,

viz., the second member survives.

(23) a. Seoul

(J)k ilk+ta

(J)p palp+ta (J)ph ilph +ta

(J)m salm (J)m kulm

--7 [ikt'a]

--7 [papt' a]

--+ [ipt'a]

--> [sam]

--+ [kum]

b. Kyengsang

l(k) ilk+ta --> [iJt'a] 'to read'

I(p) palp+ta --> [palt'a] 'to tread on'

I(ph) ilph+ta --> [ilt'a] 'to recite'

(I)m salm --> [sam] 'life'

(I)m kulm --> [kum] 'to starve'

Couched in the increasingly familiar terms of Optimality Theory (Prince &


McCarthy 1993, Prince & Smolensky 1993), forn1s in the pattern of (22) and

(23) can be accounted for under assumption of two weighted constraints

which govern the construction of Korean syllables. These are Peripherality

and Coda Sonority:

(24) Peripherality

Parse Peripheral specifications.

(25) Coda Sonority

In syllable codas, parse sonorant segments.

As Kenstowicz (1993) also observes, Peripherality (his 'Parse-Place') parallels

the representations of the feature geometry shown in (20), and in the form

of (24) gives prosodic priority to labials and velars. The result in a lexical

cluster of heterorganic obstruents, as in Ilmps/, will be that the Peripheral is

parsed, or realized, at the expense of the nonperipheral: [kap). It is not

possible in Korean for both members of the cluster in /kapsl to survive, and

the winner is Ipl rather than Isl (which would neutralize to Et]]) because Ipl meets the Peripherality constraint in (24), Isl does not.

There happen not to be any underlying final clusters in which both members

are peripheral-if there were, one would expect parsing of the more marked

velars at the expense of labials - but there are some composed of liquid or

nasal plus coronal obstruent in which neither member is peripheral, e.g., in

Itolsl, and in these cases it is the sonorant member of the cluster which

survives. Iverson & S. Lee (995) ascribe this resolution of the cluster

violation to the Coda Sonority constraint, a cross-linguistic preference for

segments of higher rather than lower sonority in syllable codas. The

implications of this principle for language change have been laid out by

Vennemann (1988: 21ff; cf. the 'Coda Law' and 'Syllable Contact Law', and for

language typology by Goldsmith (1990: 128ff). In particular, Goldsmith observed

that some languages permit only sonorant consonants in the coda, like

Hausa and Mandarin Chinese, while others, like English, permit (essentially)

any consonant in the inventory in this position; but apparently no languages

exist which allow only obstruents in the syllable coda. In other frameworks,

Clements (1990) has incorporated the effects of Coda Sonority into a set of

general principles defining the 'sonority cycle' and core syllabification, and

Iverson & Salmons (992) have introduced the Coda Sonority idea into a

comparative analysis of limitations on Proto-Indo-European root structure


(where a surpnsmg 83% of CVC root reconstructions are sonorant or

laryngeal-final) .

With respect to a Korean word like [kap.siJ, then, the interaction and

applicability of relevant constraints would be as represented in the table in

(26), adapted along with others from S. Lee (1994). Onset Maximalization

('Onset Max') is the familiar requirement that a syllable should incorporate a

consonantal onset where possible; '*Complex' represents the exclusion of

syllable-internal consonant clusters; and 'Parse' is simply the call for surface

realization of underlying structure.

(26) kaps 'price' + i (nom) ~ [kapsiJ

candidate Onset Max

a. + kap.si

b. kaps.i * ! c. kap<s>.i * ! d. ka<p>s.i * !

As is the convention, constraints are ordered left to right in order of priority. A '+' indicates the optimal output, '*' marks violation of the

constraint in a given column, and'!' indicates a decisive violation; unparsed

material is bracketed by '> '. The shading of a box indicates that the information in that box is rendered irrelevant by the violation of a higher

constraint. In (26), then, the optimal form is (26a) because (26b-d) all violate

Onset Maximalization, the highest ranked of these constraints and violation of which is 'fatal' hence any violation of lower ranked constraints is moot

(the shaded boxes). In the uninflected word (kap], on the other hand, the

interaction of relevant constraints would be as presented in the table in (27).

(27) kaps 'price' ~ [kap]

candidate 'Complex

a. kaps

b. +kap<s> * c. ka<p>s *

Here the optimal form is (27b) because (27a) fatally violates *Complex,

the higher ranked constraint against syllable-internal clusters; (27c), in not


parsing the Ipl, violates Peripherality as well as Parse, whereas (27b), which

excludes the Isl of /kaps/, violates only Parse. (Coda Sonority does not

come into play in (27), because both Ipl and Isl are obstruents, and Onset

Maximalization is not illustrated here because the three candidates under

consideration are all in observance of that constraint.)

The dialect differences shown in (23) can also be described in a principled

way under the assumptions of Optimality Theory, because in the forms

which vary, Peripherality and Coda Sonority are in competition. Thus in cases

where both of the constraints are relevant, or make a potential difference,

PeripheraIity takes precedence over Coda Sonority in the Seoul dialect, e.g.,

the peripheral /k/ survives in lilk+tal-> [ikt'a]; but Coda Sonority is weighted

more heavily than Peripherality in Kyengsang, as there it is the sonorant

consonant IV which survives in lilk+tal-> [ilt'a]. With the rank-ordering of

constraints built-in as a fundamental rather than ancillary property of the

model, Optimality Theory is especially well suited to the description of this

kind of patterned linguistic variation.

But the theory also easily accomodates lexically idiosyncratic variation,

which a classic rule-ordering model, insensitive to the properties of

individual words, would handle only with added complexity. In Kyengsang,

for example, there is variation reported in some words between a Seoul-type

pronunciation retaining the peripheral member of an Ilk! cluster, and the

typical Kyengsang pattern, in which the sonorant member is retained instead.

Under apparent sociolinguistic conditoning, un suffixed Italk/ 'chicken' (cf.

[talgi]-Nominative) is variously realized in Kyengsang as [tak] or [tal], and

/hilk! 'soil' (cf. [hilgi]-Nominative) is manifested as either [hik] or [hil]. This

variation provides confirmatory evidence apart from assimilation that

Peripherality plays a persistent .role in the Kyengsang dialect despite being

generally subordinated to Coda Sonority there, but it also underscores the

descriptive capacity in Optimality Theory for lexically sensitive constraint

ranking. The interaction of constraints appropriate for Seoul speech (as well

as a Kyengsang variant) with respect to /hilk!-> [hik] is illustrated in the

table in (28), where Peripherality outranks Coda Sonority. The optimal form,

(28b), violates only Parse and the lower ranked Coda Sonority constraint,

whereas the other candidates, (28a) and (28C), violate more highly ranked

constraints.


(28) hilk 'soil' ---+ [hik] (Seoul; also a Kyengsang variant)

candidate 'Complex

a. hllk *!

b. + hl<l>k

c. hll<k>

Similarly, the table in (29) shows the typical Kyengsang charting of /hilk/~

[hil], where the relative ranking of Coda Sonority and Peripherality is

reversed. In this case, (29c) is optimal because its violation of Peripherality,

the lowest ranked constraint, is made irrelevant by the superiority of Coda

Sonority.

(29) hilk 'soil' ---+ [hil] (Kyengsang)

candidate 'Complex

a. hllk *!

b. hl<l>k

c. + hll<k>

The dialect differences at hand thus emerge naturally under the constraint

interaction model of Optimality Theory, without multiple or contradictory

procedures for the building of prosodic structure (Whitman 1988, Cho 1990),

and without need to posit syllabification in the lexicon as well as in the phonology (Oh 1994). Kenstowicz's (1993) Optimality-Theoretic sketch of

Korean cluster reduction, on the other hand, parallels much of the present

exposition, including lexically variable constraint ranking, but it posits a

constraint called Contiguity in the place of Coda Sonority. Contiguity calls

for the maintaining of adjacency between segments which are already adjacent

in lexical representation, thus the preferred site for epenthesis is at the

margin of rather than within morphemes - an epenthetic segment at morpheme

juncture does not interrupt the contiguity of segments which are adjacent in

lexical representation, but morpheme-internal epenthesis does. Generalizing

this idea to cover also deletion, or underparsed material, gives results for

Korean cluster simplification similar to the present analysis developed to this

point, but with Contiguity substituting for Coda Sonority. In (28), for example,

Korean Phonology in the Late Twentieth Century 7ll

Peripherality would dominate Contiguity (rather than Coda Sonority), hence

the survival of /k/ in Ihilk! would win out over /lI despite the fact that /i/ and /k/ are not lexically contiguous in this fOlm; then with the reverse

ranking in (29), Contiguity would be a superior constraint to Peripherality,

and so call for keeping intact the lexical adjaceny of /i/ and /lI at the

expense of underparsing /k/. Contiguity and Coda Sonority yield different predictions in other cases,

however, and there the indication is that, if it is instantiated at all in

Korean, the Contiguity constraint must be subordinate to Coda Sonority. In

the case of heterorganic sonorant clusters, illustrated by /salm/ 'life' in (23),

the surviving member of the cluster in each dialect area is the segment

marked for both peripherality and sonority, /m/. If Contiguity were

substituted for Coda Sonority, then *[sal] would be the form predicted in

Kyengsang, where Peripherality is the subordinate constraint. But under

assumption of Coda Sonority instead of Contiguity, [sam] is the fom1

predicted in Kyengsang as well as in Seoul, as charted in the tables in (30)

and (31).

(30) sal m 'life' ---> [sam] (Kyengsang)

candidate 'Complex Parse Coda Sonority Peripherality

a. salm *! b. + sa<l>m * c. sal <m> * *

(31) salm 'life' -> [sam] (Seoul)

candidate 'Complex

a. salm

b. +sa<l>m

c. sal<m>

In (30), the optimal form is (30b) because the fully parsed (30a) violates the

higher ranked constraint against syllable-internal clusters, and (30c) , though

it conforms to Coda Sonority the same as (30b), violates Peripherality as

well as Parse. In (31), where Peripherality dominates Coda Sonority, the

least violated candidate again is the one in which the liquid is disregarded.

The survival of /m/ in /salm/ is thus doubly motivated, as the /m/ satisfies


both Peripherality and Coda Sonority; hence [sam] is the pronunciation

observed in both dialect groups, irrespective of rank ordering between the

two constraints. Optimality Theory thus offers a particularly suitable framework for

description of this kind of linguistic variation, including lexically sensitive

choices between alternate constraint rankings made within the same language or dialect. In addition to their role in the determination of consonant cluster

simplification, however, these constraints appear to be involved in other

aspects of Korean syllable structure as well. Interpreted as constraints on optimality rather than as factors of authorization in the syllabic licensing procedure (per Goldsmith 1990, Oh 1994), these principles cast the frequently described phenomenon of syllable-final obstruent neutralization in Korean in

a new light. It has been pointed out many times that this language's three-way laryngeal

manner contrast neutralizes to the unmarked lax type of articulation in syllable-coda position, where the fricatives and affricates also lose their continuant qualities; additionally, the glottal approximant /h/ merges with the class of coronals to surface as unreleased [t'] (Iverson 1989). However, these changes have the odd consequence within a derivational model of phonology of forcing the postulation of a rule which is not defined on any single geometric constituent (Clements & Hume 1994). As Iverson & Kim (1987) expressed it, the coda neutralization rule requires the 'delinking of all terminal features' - specifically, the laryngeal features [spread glottis] or

[constricted glottis] as well as the manner feature [continuant], and the Coronal-subordinate place feature (-anterior] (which identifies the palatal

series). Nodes in the geometry like Labial or Dorsal are then not affected, and the actual noncontinuant, lax character of the resulting stops is filled in by unmarked 'default' specification.

(32) Coda Neutralization Word-Final Effects Ip p' phi -> (p'] li phi -> [ip '] 'leaf' It t' thl -> [f) In a thl -> [naf] 'each' le c' chi -> [f) In a chi -> [naf] 'face

,

Is s'l -> [f) In a si -> [naf] 'sickle'

/hi -> [f) Inah/ -> [naf] 'give birth' /k k' khl -> [k'] /kok/ -> [kok']

, song

,

Taking these adjustments now all to be reflections of a phonetic constraint

imposing a gesture of 'oral contact nonrelease' on syllable-final consonants


generally (Kim-Renaud 1974, Iverson & H. Sohn 1994), the result will be an

underparsing of distinctive phonological structure below the level of the Root

node, which is itself composed of specifications for the three major class

features ([sonorant), [approximant], and [vQCoid], in the system of Clements

& Hume 1995). In short, phonological segments need be marked only for

non-default specifications (apart from major class feature configurations);

hence Isl requires only the specification [continuant] to distinguish it from

/hi, which would be marked as both [continuant] and [spread glottis]' and

It! needs no specifications at all since its features are all provided by default

(Iverson 1989). Accordingly, neutralization of the nonanterior coronal affricates

and the placeless glottal approximant /hi to an anterior coronal stop is

attributable to the default character of the segment It I in Korean, because

any nonsonorant not marked for Peripherality-the class of unreleased coronal

obstruents as well as unreleased /hI - is spelled out in surface phonology as

the lax anterior coronal stop [tl

The survival of labial and velar place properties, however, appears to be

another instantiation of the Pelipherality constraint, hierarchized in this case

to dominate Coda Nonrelease. That is, Peripherality calls for the parsing

specifically of labials and velars, while the constraint which derives from the

Coda Nonrelease principle in (33) inhibits the parsing of phonological structure

apart from major class specifications. The familiar Consonantal Defaults

listed in (34) provide actual phonetic representation for unspecified structures,

but the subordination of the Coda Nonrelease constraint to Peripherality will

account for the surface retention of distinctive labial and velar qualities even

under conditions of coda neutralization.

(33) Coda Nonrelease

Oral contact in syllable-final consonants may not be immediately

released.

(Consequent Constraint: Parse major class features.)

(34) Consonantal Defaults

· The default Place specification is Coronal dominating [+anteriorJ.

· The default Peripheral specification is Labial.

· The default obstruent manner specification is [-continuantJ

(jn the case of nonanterior coronals, [-continuant]/[ +continuant]).

· Default Laryngeal specifications are [-spread glottis],

[-constricted glottis], [-voicel

714 Young-mee Yu Cho and Gregory K Iverson

In combination with Peripherality, then, Coda Nonrelease and Consonantal

Defaults achieve the limitations on syllable-final obstruent articulations

illustrated in (32). These constraints, in one form or another, are necessary

elements in the description of Korean phonology in any framework, but

under Optimality Theory they interact in ways that causally relate a number

of superficially independent phenomena, including restrictions on place of

articulation assimilation, consonant cluster simplification, and coda

neutralization. A convergence of ideas advanced by Ahn (1994), Kenstowicz

(993), Oh (1994), and others thus leads to an account of constraint

interaction offering insights into Korean sound structure which appear not to

be not as forthcoming under conventional, derivational models of phonology.

At the same time, the possibility of variable constraint ranking under the

model of Optimality Theory constitutes an obviously very powerful

descriptive device, particularly when extended into the domain of individual

lexical items. It is an important question bearing further investigation, then,

as to what the limitations are on this kind of variabililty, or what

constraints there may be on the constraints.

9. Korean Phonetics and the Representation of Aspiration

C-W. Kim's (1970) pioneering work on the laryngeal phonetics of Korean

pointed out that there are actually two degrees of aspiration in the three

way distinctive stop sty stem in this language. Besides the series of glottally

tense voiceless unaspirated stops (jp' t' C' k'j), Korean has both heavily

aspirated (jph th Ch kh!) and lightly aspirated voiceless stops (Jp t c k/) contrasting in syllable-initial position. Rather than attribute aspiration just to

a delay in the onset of voicing for a following vowel, as suggested by the

cross-linguistic survey of Voice Onset Time (VOT) variations conducted by

Lisker & Abramson (1964), Kim proposed that aspiration is the automatic,

aerodynamic result of a spread glottis cO!:1figuration in the larynx. Thus, as

abducted vocal folds begin to come together after release of oral closure in

order to produce voicing in a following vowel, a certain amount of time

passes before the vocal folds achieve the adducted state necessary for

phonation. Up to that point, the vocal folds are not in contact, and air exiting

the trachea during the period of post-release voicelessness is perceived as

"aspiration". In Kim's (1970) words:

(35) '" it seems safe to assume that aspiration is nothing but a function


of the glottal opening at the time of release. This is to say that if a

stop is n degree aspirated, it must have an n degree glottal opening

at the time of release of the glottal closure. (C-W. Kim 1970:77)

More than two decades later, Ladefoged (1993) similarly holds that:

(36) In general, the degree of aspiration (the amount of lag in the voice

onset time) will depend on the degree of glottal aperture during the

closure. The greater the opening of the vocal cords during a stop, the

longer the amount of the following aspiration. (Ladefoged 1993:142)

In Korean, then, the heavily aspirated series can be characterized as

having the linguistically maximum degree of glottal width (around 10 mm,

based on Kim's cineradiographic tracings, representable as [spread glottis]),

whereas the lightly aspirated or lax series has an only slightly open glottis

in which the vocal folds are neither particularly abducted nor adducted (an

opening of around 3 mm, glottis neither spread nor constricted), while the

laryngeal configuration of the tense series has the vocal folds in rather tight

approximation (less than l' mm of opening, [constricted glottis)).

This three-way division of glottal width and the identification of aspiration

as ensuing from a specification of [spread glottis} have been integrated into

the laryngeal feature framework worked out by Halle & Stevens (971), and

continue to form part of the distinctive feature stock of current phonological

theory (Clements 1985, Goldsmith 1990, Kenstowicz 1994). But the "puff of

air" of aspiration does not always result from a specification of [spread

glottisl In particular, as Kim pointed out well prior to the development of

modem autosegmental representation, there is no aspiration produced within

a syllable-internal cluster of voiceless obstruents in English words like spit, even though the glottis is spread. In essence, Kim suggested that the reason

English stops are not aspirated after Isl is that these clusters contain but a

single specification of [spread glottis}, shared between the fricative and the

stop:

(37) ... The glottal movement for Ipl of Ispl will start during Isl, i.e., the

glottis will begin to widen. This means that, if the glottis is

instructed to open to the same degree and for the same period for

Ipl of Ispl as it would for initial Ipl, the glottis will begin to close

by the time the closure for Ipl is made, and consequently, by the

time Ip/ is released, the glottis will have become so narrow that the

716 Young-mee Yu Cho and Gregory K. Iversori

voicing for the following vowel will immediately start, and thus we

have an unaspirated Ipl after Is/. Note that the notion of simultaneous

compatibility is crucial here, i.e., since Is/ is voiceless and does not

require the closing of the glottis, the opening of the glottis for /p/

does not have to wait for the completion of Isl but can proceed

simultaneously with the oral articulation of Is/. <C-W. Kim 1970:80)

Indeed, the peak of glottal opening associated with this gesture in the

cluster /sp/ lies in (the latter portion of) the /s/, as will be described.

Though the glottis progressively narrows until achieving voicing in the

following vowel, as it does in the release portion of singleton stops, in Ispl

the period of "aspiration" is consumed in the oral closure phase of the stop

member of the cluster. Assuming a largely constant duration for the

specification of [spread glottis] (which equates with the constancy of the "voiceless interval", or VU, as laid out for English by Weismer 1980), the

absence of aspiration in /s/-c1usters thus reduces to the observation that the narrowing glottis which characterizes the latter portion of the [spread glottis]

specification is associated with the stop in the cluster, whereas the presence

of aspiration in singleton stops reflects association of a narrowing glottis

with the release phase of the stop (equivalently, with the initial portion of the following vowel):

(38) Cluster: Singleton:

s p V ph V p V

V I V [sp gj] [sp gI] [sp gI]

There is considerable phonetic as well as phonological evidence that the

[spread glottis] specification in clusters is shared. Noting that especially

sibilant fricatives, like /s/, require a large glottal aperture in order to

produce air flow high enough to sustain their characteristic turbulence,

Kingston (1990) cites experimental work using photoelectric glottography on

voiceless obstruents, both singly and in clusters, from several languages

Swedish, Japanese, Icelandic, as well as English (Loqvist & Yoshioka 1981,

Yoshioka, Loqvist, & Hirose 1981), For all of these, in single fricatives the

peak of glottal opening is coordinated with the beginning of oral constriction.

In single stops the peak occurs later, at the point of oral release, but in

clusters there is only one such gesture:


(39) Peak glottal opening in clusters of a fricative followed by a stop does

not OCcur at the same time relative to the oral articulations as it

would for either a fricative or a stop occuning alone. The most typical

point is close to the boundary between the two oral articulations, a

temporal compromise between the early peak of the fricative and the

late peak of the stop. (Kingston 1990:427)

This observation parallels those by Browman & Goldstein (1986a), Anderson

& Ewen (1987:195-196), or more recently Goldstein (1990:447) ..... that words

may begin with at most one glottal gesture", and is consistent with a

feature representation for obstruent clusters of the sort in (38), in which the

same laryngeal gesture has domain over both members of the cluster;

however, it runs afoul of traditional phonological accounts wherein the

[spread glottis] feature (or [aspiration» is not present in either segment to

begin with, and instead is added by rule to voiceless stops only at the

beginning of the word or stressed syllable. The fact is too that [spread

glottis] cannot be a property just of word and syllable-initial stops, because

it also occurs phonetically in single fricatives - a wide glottis configuration

marks the fricative /s/ in Korean even as a singleton (Kagaya 1974; Iverson

1983b) - and in clusters composed of fricative plus stop, in which case the

gesture does not occur twice, once for each of the two voiceless segments,

but rather is shared between them. This finding (as, indeed, the feature

[spread glottis] itself) was foreshadowed almost exactly in the seminal work

on Korean phonetics carned out by C-W. Kim (1970).

The scheme of laryngeal representation for two-way contrasts along the

voice-onset continuum differs from language to language, however, depending

on the phonology and the phonetics. In the simplest systems, like Hawaiian,

there are no VOT contrasts at all, and hence no marked laryngeal features,

either; but in two-way VOT contrastive systems, either the feature [voice]

is contrasted with an absence of laryngeal specification (Romance, Slavic,

Japanese, Dutch), or the feature [spread glottis] is so contrasted (English,

Gennan, Swedish, Icelandic). Both features are employed in three-way VOT

contrastive systems, (e.g., Thai), as well as in more complex four-way

systems such as in Hindi. In other three-way systems, however, [constricted

glottis] is invoked rather than [voice] (Korean, Quechua), or these two

features together define a system without [spread glottis], as in Hausa,

whose glottally constricted articulations are actually either laryngealized

(Jabials, coronals) or ejective (velars) (Ladefoged 1973). There are numerous


two-way systems as well in which [constricted glottis], rather than [voice]

or [spread glottis], is the marked laryngeal feature (e.g., K'ekchi [Mayan]),

and there are also four-way systems which exploit [constricted glottis] in

various ways (Yuchi [Macro-Siouan], Sedang [Austro-Asiatic), Zulu [Bantu],

Kullo [Afro-Asiatic]). Moreover, as Ladefoged's (1973) survey of laryngeal

typology first laid out (cf. also Iverson 1983a, Maddieson 1984), there are a

number of five-way laryngeally contrastive systems (e.g., Sindhi [Indic],

Siswati [Bantu]), and even six-way systems have been reported (Beja

[Cushitic], Igbo [Kwa]). These fill out the remaining combinatorial possibilities

of the simplex laryngeal features, taking into account that [spread glottis]

may not cooccur with [constricted glottis] for obvious anatomical reasons

and that all complex systems (three or more contrasts) seem to employ at

least one VOT distinction. The table in (40), taken from Iverson & Salmons

(1995), exemplifies the known combinations of these three laryngeal features

which were anticipated in C-W. Kim's (1970) work, arranged in increasing

order of presumed complexity as reflected in the number and kind of

contrasts.

(40) Typology of Laryngeal Contrasts

/p/ ib/ /p"/ ib"/ /p'/ /b-Ei/

Hawaiian [ ]

English [ ] [ ] [spr gI]

Spanish [ ] [voice]

K'ekchi [ ) [cnstr gI]

Thai [ ] [voice] [spr gl]

Korean [ ] [spr gI] [cnstr gIJ

Hausa [ ] [voice] [cnstr gIJ

Hindi [ ] [voice] [spr gI] [spr gJ] [voice]

Yuchi [ ] [voice] [spr gll [cnstr gIJ

Sedang [ ] [voice) [spr gIJ [cnstr gll

[voice]

Zulu [ ] [spr gIJ [cnstr gll [cnstr gJ]

[voice]

Kullo [ ] [voice] [cnstr gl] [cnstr gll

[voice]

(continued on the next page)


/p/ ;b/ jp"/ ;b"/ /p'/ Ib-o/

Sindhi [ ] [voice] [spr gll [spr gJ) [cnstr g!l [voice] [voice]

Siswati [ ] [voice] [spr gll [spr gIJ

[cnstr gll [voice]

Beja [ ] [voice] [spr gll [spr gJ)

[cnstr gll [cnstr gll

[voice] [voice]

In all cases, save ordinary Gennanic as represented by English, the

unmarked type of stop falls in the voiceless (unaspirated) series. These

segments can be expected then to exhibit the familiar phonological qualities

of the unmarked, serving as the site to which rather than from which other

features spread, and standing in as the product that results from

nonassimilatory neutralizations. Such properties are in fact characteristic of

the so-called voiced stop series in English and most other Gern1anic

languages (ef. Iverson & Salmons 1995), where in word-initial position the

phonemically voiced stops are phonetically only moderately voiced, if at all,

while initial voiceless stops are aspirated according to familiar patterns of

distribution. Like Korean, then, English juxtaposes marked aspirated stops with

an unmarked series of lax stops (lightly aspirated/redundantly voiced in

Korean, unaspirated/redundantly voiced in English), but Korean also contrasts

these with a third, glottally constricted series.

10. Palatalization, Umlaut, and Blocking Effects

Another aspect of Korean phonology which has gained prominence in

current theoretical discussion is the "blocking effect" associated with the

processes of umlaut (Hume 1990, Y-S. Kang 1991, Kenstowicz 1994, S. Lee

1993, 1994) and palatalization (Ahn 1988, Iverson 1993, Kiparsky 1993). The

two phenomena are related, and interact in ways which Iverson & S. Lee

(1994) have argued come about automatically from the operation of cross

linguistically validated phonological principles.

Umlaut in Korean, especially in the Kyengsang and Cheolla dialects, has

the familiar effect that back vowels are fronted before /iI in the next

syllable. But the process is inhibited by certain intervening consonants

specifically, by palatals. If a model of segment representation is assumed in

which the same place of articulation features are used to describe both

consonants and vowels (Clements 1993, Clements & Hume 1995), the


generalization emerges that umlaut takes place just across consonants which

are phonologically independent of the vowels involved in the assimilation.

That is, umlaut is blocked whenever the high front vowel which would

otherwise trigger the process shares place of articulation features with a

preceding palatal consonant. Suspension of the application of umlaut has been

understood in tenus of Geminate Inalterability (Hayes 1986, Schein and

Steriade 1986). This principle has the consequence that geometrically shared

configurations will satisfy a rule's structural requirements only if they are

specifically referred to by the rule. Under this condition, in short, umlaut

does not apply over palatal consonants preceding Ii/ in Korean because the

rule does not explicitly make reference to their shared or multiply associated

properties. To see this, leaving aside for present purposes any lexical markedness

considerations involving Peripherality (which does not play a determinative

role in this connection), we look to the Clements model of segment

representation in which individual features are not fixed invariantly

according to their geometric organization. While vowel place features are

subsumed under the category of V-Place, and consonant features fall under C-Place-the general place constituent to which V-Place is itself

subordinated (cf. also Archangeli & Pulleyblank 1987) -either type of feature

may also appear under the other (or both) of these categories. Thus, labial

consonants and rounded vowels are both [labial], but in consonants this

feature falls under the C-Place node, in vowels and glides under the

V-Place node. Similarly, central consonants and front vowels are both [coronal] (organized under C-Place for consonants, V-Place for vowels),

back consonants and back vowels are both [dorsal], and consonants and

vowels with retracted tongue root (e.g., pharyngeals) are both [radical].

V-Place also identifies vocalic articulations in consonants: Plain consonants

have only a C-Place specification, but secondarily articulated (palatalized,

velarized, etc.) consonants, as well as vowels and glides, carry V-Place as a

daughter of C-Place. These relationships are illustrated in the geometric

comparison in (41), adapted from Clements (1993).


(41) Plain Consonant vs. Vowel vs. Secondary Consonant Articulation

It I lil It!il : J

! 1 !

C-PJace C-Place C-Place

/ ~ ~ [coronal] vocalic [coronal] vocalic

~ ~ V-Place aperture V-Place aperture

I I I I [coronal] [high] [coronal] [high]

Understanding umlaut as a spreading of the feature [coronal] from a high

front vowel Ii/ rearward onto a phonologically adjacent preceding vowel

(simultaneously displacing any inherent place features) will result in a rule

taking the form shown in (42).

(42) Umlaut

vocalic vocalic

~ ~ V-Place V-Place aperture

r············· . ..J I [ .... ] [coronal] [high]

In (43a), then, some examples are given in which umlaut takes place over

intervening labial and dorsal consonants, and over coronals in (43b), whereas

(43cl exemplifies the blocking of umlaut over an underlying palatal

consonant; (43d) lists a few forms which, for some speakers, exceptionally

fail to undergo umlaut (cf. Kenstowicz 1994:470).

(43) a. Umlaut across noncoronal consonants:

/api/ -> [rebi] 'father'

/koki/ -> [kegi] 'meat'

/eki/ -> [emi] 'mother'

/cuk+i+ta/ -> [cigida] 'kill-Declarative'

b. Umlaut across anterior coronal consonants:

/mati/ -> [mredi] 'knot'

/melmi/

/canti/

[melmi]

[crendi]

'vertigo'

'lawn'


c. Umlaut is blocked across an underlying palatal consonant: lkacV -> [kachi] (*[krec\]) 'value'

!taci+ta/ -> [tajida] (*[trejida]) 'mince-Dec]'

Ikacil -> [keji] (*[kejiJ) 'beggar'

d. Lexical exceptions to umlaut (some speakers): !salp\+ta/-> [salphida] (*[salphida]) 'search-Declarative'

!napil -> [nabiJ (*[nrebi]) 'butterfly'

!moki/ -> [mogi] (*[megi]) 'mosquito'

Thus, back vowels are fronted (and unrounded, for many umlauting

speakers) before an /iI in the next syllable, except that underlying palatals

regularly interrupt this spread of vocalic coronality. The reason why

particularly palatals block umlaut in Korean does not appear to be a function

of the well-known prohibition on auto segmental line crossing, however, as

suggested by Hume (1990) and Kenstowicz (1994). Though this kind of

explanation is commonly brought forward as a general characterization of

the interruption of feature spread, in this case ascribing the blocking of

umlaut to the stricture against the crossing of autosegmental association

lines would require that otherwise unmotivated V-Place structure be

attributed to the intervening palatal consonants. But these are primary

palatal (nonanterior corona!) articulations, not secondary palatalized sounds.

That is, the structure of Korean palatal consonants must be along the simpler

lines presented in (44a), not those of the richer, vocalicized representation in

(44b), because the affricates le Ch c'! are nonanterior coronals rather than

basic alveolars secondarily articulated with i-like Qualities.

(44) a. Palatal consonant b. Palatalized consonant

If I C-Place C-Place

I ~ [coronaJ] [coronal] vocalic

I ~ [-anterior] V-Place aperture

I I [coronal] [high]

I [ -anterior]

There are perhaps other ways to distinguish plain palatals from palatalized


alveolars, but the important point is that no phonetic reason exists for

ascribing secondary vocalic structure to the Korean palatal series le Ch c'/.

(Though redundant in vowels, the presence of [-anterior] under the [coronal]

feature is relevant to consonant assimilation; cf. below, and S. Lee 1994.) If

vocalic structure is not present in Korean palatals, however, the fact that

these segments block umlaut cannot be attributed to the familiar

autosegmental line crossing prohibition, because without V-Place structure

standing in the way of the spread of other V-Place features, the [coronal]

element identified in rule (42) would propagate through any intervening

consonants, palatal or otherwise. Thus, umlaut takes place in words like

ImatV 'knot' ([mredj]) because It! is not imbued with any vocalic structure;

but it would also appear that umlaut should occur in words like /kacV 'value' (which is [kachi), not * [krechj]) , because, as exhibited in (44a), the

'true' palatals of Korean do not have secondary vocalic structure, either. The

(incorrect) penneability of independently represented true palatals vis-a.-vis

the [coronal] spreading effect of umlaut is illustrated in (45).

(45) Umlaut would not be blocked over a lexically independent true palatal

lal Ic"1 lil

C-Place C-Place C-Place

I I I vocalic [coronal] vocalic

~ I ~ aperture V-Place [-anterior] V-Place aperture

I =f--------------------------- ----J I [low] [dorsal] [coronal] [high]

I [-anterior]

In fact, however, the incorrect consequence in (45) will be avoided if the

Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) is taken into account. This is the

frequently cited constraint in phonology which prohibits the representation of

adjacent identical specifications within morphemes, forcing them instead to

share but a single instance (cf. McCarthy 1986, others). The V-Place

specifications for front vowels accordingly must be shared with the C-Place

constituent in a preceding palatal consonant since these feature properties of

the two adjacent segments, though of differing geometric affiliation, are

identical. The unifying effect of the OCP operating on morpheme-internal

sequences of palatal consonant plus front vowel is illustrated in (46).


(46) QCP effect on tautomorphemic l .. chi ... /

le"/ lil

C-Plaee C-Plaee

I vocalic

~ V - Plaee aperture

I [coronal) [high)

I [ -anterior]

The reason palatal consonants block umlaut in Korean is now clear, viz.,

the Uniformity Condition inhibits application to structures whose lines of autosegmental association are not explictly mentioned in the rule. Thus, by

virtue of the OCP, the feature configuration targeted for spread in the rule

of umlaut ([coronal]) is shared in Korean representations containing a preceding underlying palatal consonant. But because the rule of umlaut given

in (42) requires reference to only one line of association relating [coronal] to

higher constituents, its application is automatically suspended in lexical representations, like /kacV, in which this feature is associated with two

skeletal elements.

In contrast to possible alternative interpretations invoking the autosegmentaI line crossing prohibition (which in any case would

misrepresent Korean palatals as secondary rather than primary articulations),

the Uniformity Condition also entails that derived palatals block the application of umlaut. As has often been described, alveolars become true

palatals in position before IV in the next morpheme, and even within the

same morpheme if no neutralization results (Iverson 1993). A basic

characterization of the rule of alveolar palatalization is given in (47), with

both neutralizing and allophonic examples of the phenomenon listed in (48).

In parallel to the underlying palatals, these derived instances of nonanterior

coronals also inhibit umlaut.


(47) Palatalization of alveolars

It I lil

C-Place C-Place """"'" * ", V-Place aperture

"-"J I [coronal) [high)

I [ -anterior)

(48) a. Neutralizing palatalization: /path+i/ ~ [pachiJ (*[prechj»

/mat+i/

/tot+i/ Ikath+i/

~ [maji]

....... [toji]

....... [kachiJ

( *[mrejj»

(*[teji])

(*[krec\])

'field-Nominative'

'eldest-Nominal'

'rise-Nominal'

'same-Adverbial'

('together')

/puth+i+ta/....... [puchida] (*[pichida])

'adhere-Causative-Declarative'

b. Allophonic palatalization:

/si/ ....... [si] ( * [si]) poem ,

/os+i/ ....... [osi] (*[eSi)) 'clothes-Nominative'

/apsi/ ....... [apsi] (*[epsi) 'without'

/mun+i/ ....... [mupi] (*[mirri]) 'door-Nominative ,

/holli + ta/ ....... (hoAAida] (*[heJ..Aj)) , seduce-Declarative

725

In merging (presumably underspecified) alveolars with palatals through

spread of the [coronal] element (along with its redundant [-anterior]

subordinate) from a following high vowel, the independent palatalization

process given in (47) produces a shared feature configuration of the same

kind as results from operation of the OCP in sequences of palatal plus front

vowel shown in (46). Thus, both derived and basic palatals share coronal

properties with a following high front vowel, and both, under the Uniformity

Condition, are opaque to umlaut in virtue of their [corona]) constituent's

multiple autosegmental association. Because alveolars assimilate to a following

/i/, in other words, the [coronal] property of derived palatals is shared with

that vowel, just as is a [coronal] specification among morpheme-internal


sequences of underlying palatal and front vowel per the OCP. In both cases,

the reason that the general rule of umlaut does not apply over palatals is

that these consonants are not autosegmentally independent of the vowel

whose features they share, and on which the application of umlaut is defined.2

This way of looking at umlaut, as a further consequence, effectively

removes the reservations registered by Iverson (1993) over 'context-sensitive

radical underspecification' of the Korean palatals. The backdrop for these

reservations is the well-known circumstance that, though obviously cut from

the same phonetic cloth, the neutralizing (or lexical) and allophonic (or

postlexical) aspects of Korean palatalization have defied descriptive

unification within the conventional theory of Lexical Phonology, as Ahn

(1985, 1988) points out with special clarity. In a proposal advanced by

Kiparsky (1993), however, both types of palatalization would fall under a

single generalization if contrastive place properties of underlying palatals

were lexically specified everywhere except in the environment of a following

tautomorphemic /iI, where their palatal qualities could be provided by a

structure-building (feature-filling) application of the palatalization rule.

Alveolars, on the other hand, would always be lexically underspecified

except again in the environment of a following IV, where they would need

to be marked for their anterior coronality in order to escape the

structure-building effects of palatalization. That is, because the Derived

Environment Constraint embodied in Lexical Phonology's Strict Cycle

Condition inhibits lexical rules like palatalization from applying in a

structure-changing fashion in nonderived, morpheme-internal environments,

the special marking of certain alveolars <the ones occurring before /iI) assures that their place of articulation properties will not be subject to

change via feature fill-in application of assimilatory rules. The necessary

blocking of palatalization in a monomorphemic word such as ImatV 'knot'

accordingly, is achieved by representing its otherwise underspecified It! with

distinctive alveolar place of articulation features, so taking advantage of the

established principle that lexically listed structure cannot be changed in

nonderived environments.

As sketched out in the preceding discussion of umlaut, however, the

unmarked alveolars remain phonologically underspecified in all environments,

2 Recently, H-S Kim (1997) raises objections to the traditional daim that Umlaut is sensitive to the place of articulation of intervening consonants, citing examples such as /tutoci/ --.,. [tudaji] 'mole', /acikanhi/--- [ejiganhi] 'considerably'.


irrespective of the following vowel. The OCP effect on underlying palatal

plus front vowel sequences (cf. (46» does result in a seeming

underspecification of palatals before IV, but, in actuality, lexical palatals are

specified for place of articulation features even here: It is just that place

features under this circumstance, by dint of the OCP, may not be

independent of the following vowel. The unity of the derived-environment,

neutralizing, lexical applications of palatalization exemplified in (48a) with the

across-the-board, allophonic, postlexical aspects of palatalization seen in

(48b) then ensues directly via implementation of Kiparsky's (1973) Revised

Alternation Condition, the general principle which restricts specifically

neutralizing rule applications to phonologically derived environments. Debate

may continue over whether this is the appropriate form of the derived

environment limitation (Iverson 1993) or, instead, the constraint should be

subsumed under the Strict Cycle Condition along with context-determined

feature underspecification (Kiparsky 1993). In either case, it is clear that the

phonologically compound palatalization process in Korean has played, and

continues to play, a catalytic role in framing fundamental questions of

phonological theory, Lexical Phonology in particular. (The most recent

contribution to this discussion is the prosodic analysis of Oh (1995), who

shows that the derived environment to which palatalization actually is

restricted is the 'phonological word' not higher-order prosodic structures

such as compounds.) As laid out in a series of influential U.S. doctoral

dissertations beginning with Kim-Renaud (1974) on consonantal phonology in

general, through Ahn (1985) on Lexical Phonology, K-H. Kim (1987) on

feature geometry, H. Sohn (1987) on underspecification, and Y. Cho (990)

on parametric phonology, palatalization thus joins with umlaut, coda

neutralization, cluster simplification, place assimilation, tensification, and other

segmental phenomena of Korean in the establishment and testing of major

phonological hypotheses.

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______ (994) 'On Peripherality: A Molecular Approach,' in Kim

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Youmans and D. Lance eds., In Memory of Roman jakobson.

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Anderson, John M. and Colin ]. Ewen (1987) Principles of Dependency

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Young-mee Yu Cho

Department of East Asian Languages

Rutgers University

New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1164

USA

[email protected]

Gregory Iverson

Department of Linguistics

University of Wisconsin

Milwaukee, WI 53201-0413

USA

[email protected]

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